


Stitches and Fractures

by Taking_All_The_Stupid_With_You



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Hopefully), Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Civil War, F/F, F/M, I... I Don't Know Where We Went Wrong, Infinity War (Hopefully), Loki and Thor are Pretty Absent The Whole Story, Mentions Of Age Of Ultron, Mentions Of Avengers (2012), Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov and Yelena Belova Are Fucking Chaotic, One-Sided Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Slow Updates, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Timeline Is Worse Than My Scoliosis, This Is A Confusing Mess, This Is From A Roleplay I Did, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, We Fucked Up The Timeline, We Messed Up, Winter Soldier (Kind Of?), WinterWidow (BuckyxYelena), in progress, romanogers - Freeform, you can fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29802393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taking_All_The_Stupid_With_You/pseuds/Taking_All_The_Stupid_With_You
Summary: So, yeah, this is a mess. It's the plot of a roleplay I've been doing for like, six months now and it's fucking messed up. So. Uh. Have fun? It gets confusing but I swear I'll try and sum it all up if we ever get to the end.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov (implied), Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (implied), James "Bucky" Barnes/Yelena Belova, Peter Parker/Michelle Jones, Sharon Carter/Natasha Romanov, Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark/Natasha Romanov (one-sided), Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Silence. Eerie silence, followed by the feeling of floating. It wasn’t too bad of a feeling, Natasha thought. Just floating. She tried to move, to look around at her surroundings, but couldn’t. She wasn’t tied down or anything, she just didn’t have the strength to move. 

Then came the feeling of drowning, of suffocating, of being tossed and shoved like a rag doll. She choked, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to cry out for help. Flashes and images bombarded her, yet she had no idea where most of them came from. A red-haired ballet dancer, stumbling on stage. A blonde archer, shooting an arrow towards a black-suited man. A black leather suit, with an hourglass on front, kind of like a spider. She couldn’t seem to remember the name.

The flashes faded out, and her body relaxed. It felt like there had been restraints around her chest, tightening and tightening until… 

Snap.

Natasha’s eyes flew open, instantly blinding herself under the glare of a hot LED lamp. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the spots from her vision, and sat up. A group of white-coated scientists were crowded around her, and they backed up when she opened her eyes. One of them pulled a clipboard out of their coat pocket.

“Good evening, Miss Romanoff,” he said, watching her from behind his glasses. “How are you feeling? Do you remember anything? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Nat shook her head, looking at the man. He was sharp, every angle defined. Not too bad looking. “Four, with your thumb folded underneath,” she said, her voice croaky. She cleared her throat. “What happened?”

The scientists exchanged looks. There was a cover story for her abduction, of course, but they didn’t know how many mind-wipes it would take for her to believe it. A woman in the back spoke up, taking off her goggles. 

"You were abducted, Miss Romanoff," she explained. "We sent your team out on a mission, and you've been missing for six months. We've just resecured you yesterday evening, and have been assessing your damage."

In the back of Nat's mind, a memory was pulled forth. A brunette soldier with a metal arm laughing and talking with her, a pair of twin siblings fighting alongside her at what looked like an airport. She nodded.

"We were going to clear you as soon as you woke up," she continued with a smile. "Good to have you back on the team, Widow."

Natasha dipped her head in the scientists' direction. She was slowly regaining feeling in her body, and she stretched. The lab workers dispersed, leaving her to herself as she made her way to the door.

As soon as she got out, something triggered her reflexes and she turned, catching her assailant's left wrist neatly, twisting around and tossing him over her shoulder. He landed with a thud and a clank, followed by a groan.

"Really, doll?" he asked in a smooth Brooklyn accent, rubbing his shoulder and getting up. "I haven't seen you in months, and this is how you're welcomin' me?"

Nat looked at him, and a small thought prodded for her attention. It was the brunette soldier from her memories, but in this one, he was walking her to her quarters, and they kissed before she watched him walk down the hall.

"Oh, givin' me the silent treatment now too?" he teased. "C'mon, let me hear that lovely Russian accent of yours."

She searched her brain for a name. James. James was his name, but he prefered being called Bucky. She hummed, her lips curving into an easy smirk. "Don't try sneaking up on me then, Buck," she told him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You know I'll beat your ass every time."

Bucky smiled and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his lips to her forehead, his metal arm burning a cold spot into the small of her back. She hummed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. They stood like that for a bit, swaying gently, before breaking apart. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked into his eyes, blue framed with thick lashes.

He leaned to kiss her, and she tilted up to meet him; his lips had barely brushed hers when a thick, excited Eastern-European accent called out from behind them.

Natasha flushed bright pink and stepped away from Bucky, just in time to get tackled by a silver and red blur. She huffed out a breath and hugged the twins back. "Hey, Wanda," she said breathlessly. "Hi, Pietro. How are my two favorite twins doing?"

"We were so worried," Wanda wailed, her lilting accent rigid with excitement. "We were fighting bad guys and then bam! You were fucking--"

"Hey! Language!" Nat and Pietro chided, rolling their eyes.

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "But you were kickin' butt with us, then you disappeared! It was crazy!"

"And extremely frightening," Bucky added, pulling Natasha close to his chest. "Please don't do that again? If you want to prank us, put shaving cream in our pillows or something. Don't just disappear like that."

Nat knew he was joking, but the genuine concern in his voice was like a knife in her gut. She hugged him tightly, burying her face in his hair, inhaling his scent deeply and committing it to memory. The twins made identical sounds of disgust.

She pulled away from him and glared at the two. "Shoo," she said, waving her hands at them. "We can catch up later. The adults are talking."

Wanda snorted and took Pietro's hand, and they were gone again in a streak of red and silver. Nat turned back to Bucky, who was watching with an amused face. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her face up a bit. "Where were we…?" she asked, her lips brushing his while she spoke.

“Right about here, I believe.” He smiled, his blue eyes bright and alive. One arm circled her waist while the other sunk itself in her hair, pulling her closer. He leaned forward just a tad bit more and pressed their lips together.

Nat was surprised she hadn't caught fire yet. And that there weren't sparks flying from where their lips touched. Fireworks exploded in her chest as she tilted her head, deepening the kiss while exhaling gently out of her nose. Her hands cradled his face, carding through his hair, and his hand clenched in hers.

They pulled away after a second, and she touched her bottom lip in wonder. "Wow," she murmured, looking at Bucky, who grinned sheepishly back.

Not that he'd tell anyone, but he always thought Natasha looked beautiful after they kissed. Call it egotistical, but it was true. Her cheeks were light pink, and her emerald eyes were bright, half lidded and looking up at him through her thick eyelashes. Her lips were pink and slightly swollen, and her hair was tousled beautifully. He leaned down again, her face filling his mind.

The second kiss was better than the first.

<<<>>>

Avengers Tower was in chaos. People were in and out of the medbay, getting treatments and transfusions, casts and slings. Peter came out the worst, being in the medbay with a set of broken ribs and a punctured lung. After a few days, it calmed down, but not for the team. They had set up meetings that had kept being delayed for medical purposes, and tonight was the one that stuck.

“So, long story short,” Tony was saying, looking from his teammates to the empty chair at his left, “is that we’re fucked.”

His teammates looked around at each other and nodded. All eyes landed on the empty seat, and Clint had to excuse himself for a second. Out of all the Avengers, Nat’s absence hit three people the most. Clint, who had this friendly-flirty thing with the Russian woman, and who’d been fighting with a different agent when she’d been abducted; Bruce, who’d been carrying a flame for Natasha for the longest time, who’d been at the Tower during the fight, attending to the injured; and Steve, who’d had this weird connection with Natasha that they’d both been perceiving as love, since neither of them had really loved anyone else like that before, save for Agent Carter. He’d been fighting alongside her, and had failed to keep her safe.

Steve looked up from the cold mug he’d been holding, staring into the murky black coffee as if his life had depended on it. “It’s obvious why she was taken, you know that, right?” he asked, his voice thick. The other Avengers looked at him. It had been days since he’d last spoken, so it came as a surprise. 

He cleared his throat. “It’s not like she’s not widely-known,” he continued, clenching his hand around the mug. “Of course HYDRA would want to get its hands on her, she’s the best spy this side of the globe.”

“We don’t know if it was HYDRA,” Pepper pointed out quietly, shrinking back as Steve turned to glare at her.

“You don’t know if it was HYDRA. I do. Mostly because I was fighting my best friend the whole time, who had also been abducted by HYDRA.” 

Silence filled the room. Pepper disappeared behind Tony, who hadn’t bothered putting a stop to Steve’s explanation. Anyone could see that the super soldier was hurting. They’d all observed his and Nat’s relationship, which had been steadily changing lanes out of friendship and into something more.

“Besides that,” Steve continued, as if Pepper’s earlier interruption had not happened, “they have two mutants on their team. A set of twins.”

A murmur rose through the room, but Steve held up his hand. “There are three members-- well, four now that they have Nat-- that work together. James Barnes, who’s the marksman. He works better long distance, not close combat. He mostly uses guns, but his metal arm can do a hell of a lot of damage. That’s the friend I was talking about.

“Then there’s Scarlet Witch. We don’t know her real name yet, but she’s one of the mutant twins. Apparently her powers are a mix of psychokinesis, which falls under the umbrella term 'telekinesis'; psionics, which allows her to easily control and manipulate technology; reality warping, which we all experienced; and probability manipulation, which allows her to cause unlikely things to happen or likely things not to happen. She’s the sweet talker and long-mission runner.

“Quicksilver, the other twin. Still no real name. His only power is speed, which means he can move faster than the speed of light. He’s the short-mission runner.

“And now they have Natasha, or Black Widow. She’s an expert tactician, hand-to-hand combatant and secret agent. She’s got slowed aging, and an enhanced immune system, which is a plus. She’s also an expert marksman and mastery of various other weapons. Her equipment consists of gauntlets, that contain grappling hooks, knockout gas, tasers, explosives, tear gas, and a radio transmitter. All in all, she’s the jack of all trades.”

Silence followed his little tirade. The team members looked to each other, then back at Steve, who had continued his deadpan stare into his coffee cup. Sam gave him a worried look before helping him up. “C’mon, meeting’s over for you. You’re going to go shower, and we’re making you eat something. Neglecting yourself won’t bring her back.”

Steve pulled away from Sam trudged out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Clint looked to Bruce, and at the same time, they said, "We'll go look after him," and pushed their chairs back with an ugly scraping sound. 

They found Steve in the kitchen area, leaning over the sink, his knuckles grasping the counter so tightly that they turned white. Clint worked on talking him out of his trance while Bruce made sandwiches. They shepherded him to the table, and he sat heavily, glaring at the sandwiches like they owed him three thousand in national debt.

"Steve, look," Clint began, looking at Steve intently. "Hey. I know this sucks. Believe me, Nat had almost the same effect on me that she had on you and Bruce. But would she want you to destroy yourself like this? Look at yourself. You're sleep-deprived, you haven’t eaten in days, you haven't showered in days, you seem out of it, you can't even focus on me."

Clint snapped his fingers under Steve's nose, and was unsurprised to see that he got no response. Bruce and Clint shared a look. 

"Uh," Clint said gently, trying a different approach. "C'mon, Steve, buddy. We need you to snap out of it. We're trying our damn hardest to get Nat back, but we need you here with us. And if not for us, Steve, please do it for Nat. She needs you more than you think she does, she needs you more than we do."

Steve looked at him, his blue eyes red and watery. He watched Clint warily, before shaking his head. "I don't know what we're going to do," he said. "They could be in Russia right now. Or Canada. Hell, even Japan is an option, they have bases everywhere."

"She hasn't left New York."

Clint and Steve looked at Bruce, who hastily tried to cover up. "I had two trackers in her suit," he explained. "You all have trackers. One for exact location, and one for state location. HYDRA took out her exact location tracker, but they couldn't find the state one. It would alert me if it left."

Steve nodded in assent and picked at his cuticles, a small ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds in his eyes. Clint took this as a good sign and continued on, watching Steve for any hasty signs of expression change.

"So we could still find her!" he said excitedly. "Just do a sweep of NY, check surrounding areas that might be in the trackers range--"

"Don't do that," Steve whispered, tears spilling over his cheeks. "Don't give me hope."

The blonde soldier stood up from the table, his shoulders heaving with sobs, and disappeared upstairs. Clint started to go after him, but Bruce grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down.

"Don't," he whispered. "I think... I think he just wants to be alone right now, and we should respect that."

Clint nodded and picked up a sandwich. Bruce did the same, and they ate in silence, thinking of ways to get their best friends back.


	2. 2

Bucky turned and swung, his metal fist aiming for Nat's jaw. She caught his hand, preoccupied, and swung herself up, slinging her legs around his shoulders and rolling forward, bringing him down and rolling off his shoulders. He groaned into the training mat, laying limp.

Nat grinned and helped him up, licking her thumb and wiping a stray line of blood from his face. "You're getting better, любовь." Off his confused look, she added, "It means 'love.' Just don't leave your peripherals open next time." 

He smiled, pushing her hair back out of her face. "And you were distracted," he murmured, looking at her. "Something going on?" He sounded concerned, a tone of voice that Nat had been hearing a lot lately, and for some reason, she was kinda confused as to why they were so scared for her.

"No, no, I'm fine," she said, waving him off. "Just thinking." She pulled her hair out of her face, securing it in a ponytail before looking at Bucky quizzically. "Why are you all so concerned?"

Bucky blinked, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean, why are we concerned? We're not."

"You don't let me go out on missions, I'm not allowed to leave the compound with you guys, and I'm always stuck here," she pointed out. "Why is that?"

"You got kidnapped, Red," Buck reminded her gently. "We were on a mission together, and you got abducted. When we got you back, you were really injured. Almost broken. Your healing factor helped us figure out how to treat you, but I thought we lost you."

Nat huffed. "I know, I know. But I knew the risks when I signed up for this. If you keep babying me, how am I supposed to want to stay--"

Bucky covered her mouth with a hand, his eyes wide. "Don't you dare," he whispered. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. Don't talk like that. Don't even think that. Please, Natasha. I can't lose you again." His eyes, normally bright blue and curious, were a stormy, greyish-blue, like rain clouds; they scanned her face for any signs of seriousness or rejection.

Nat chewed her lip and nodded. She turned her head and pressed a kiss to his palm, letting it shift to cradle her cheek. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, a lock of hair curled at his forehead. She pushed it out of his face and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her waist and they stood there, swaying gently, letting the silence wash over them.

"Hey, Bucky?" Nat murmured, turning to look at him.

"Hmm?" 

"Tell me about the mission."

<<<>>>

Fighting. Steve was used to fighting by now. It was chaos, honestly, but he wasn't used to this. No one prepared him for this, and really, how could they? It wasn't a regular occurrence, like, 'Oh, hey, Steve, this is your best friend from the '40's, he's been abducted and brainwashed by HYDRA and would like to kill you now.'

"Бля," Nat cursed, smacking her gauntlet against her palm. It hissed and sparked, letting out puffs of smoke. She groaned. "Guess we're fighting manually now, then." She caught Bucky's hand and flipped him over her shoulder, his metal arm scraping the concrete.

Steve was locked in combat next to her, with the blonde speedster. Things were going good, they fought back to back, with the rest of the team trying to take down the witch and the agents. Things were going good when...

"Steve!"

Nat's scream effectively ended fights on both sides. The witch and the speedster hovered near her, diverting anyone who tried coming between the agents and Nat. Bucky joined them, circling like a predator, taking out Clint in one easy swing to the jaw. Agents pressed in on both sides, enveloping Nat. Her screams could be heard across the entirely silent airport.

And then, a helicopter. Tony tried firing at it, but the witch redirected his pulse blast to his suit, taking out a booster. A ladder dropped, the agents pulled Nat up, and she was gone. Steve tried attaching himself to the bottom of the ladder, scrambling up uselessly. He got up to the ninth rung before Bucky cut the ladder off of the side of the helicopter.

Nat screamed one more time as he fell.

Falling, falling, falling. It felt like he'd been falling forever; time eluded him, making minutes into years, years into centuries, centuries into seconds. He was going to die. He was going to fall, and break on the concrete like a porcelain doll. He was never going to see Nat again...

"Wake up."

Steve's eyes flew open, and he could feel the concrete cradle his body. Nat leaned over him, her hair swinging forward to block out the sun. He reached up for her.

"N-Nat!" he gasped. "You-- I saw them take you--"

Nat looked at him, regarding him coolly. "I'm aware," she said quietly. "You were right next to me, and you couldn't save me, how sad. The love of your life"--she spat the words out like poison-- "oh, excuse me. The second love of your life that you couldn't save?" She tutted.

Steve wanted to reach out, to hold her tightly, to tell her it wasn't true. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Bucky sidled up to Nat's side. "Bucky!"

The Winter Soldier shot Steve a cool glare. "Steve."

Steve was confused, put off by the animosity between his two friends, a sinking feeling in his lower abdomen. He watched, horrified, as Bucky wrapped his arms around Nat's waist, pulling the redhead close to his chest, holding her flush against his side...

His heart pounded in his ears, his vision clouding red as Bucky leaned down to kiss Nat, who tilted her head up to meet him. He tackled Bucky, but went through him, stumbling and falling forward. He looked behind him, but now he was trapped in a circle with his fellow Avengers. There was silence, and then Peter spoke up, his arm around his shattered ribs, breathing with some difficulty.

"Good job, Mr. Rogers," he said, blood trickling down his lips. "You never could save the people you care about most, could you…? First Bucky, then Peggy, now Miss Romanoff..." He was cut off by a bout of coughing that spattered Steve with blood.

"No, you don't understand," Steve whispered.

"We understand plenty well," Clint hissed, nursing a dislocated shoulder. "We understand that we shouldn't have let you lead this mission. Face it. You can never be an Avenger."

Tears were spilling down Steve's face now. "No, no, I swear, it wasn't my fault!"

Tony stepped forward, shoving Steve back. "It's your fault, all right. All of it is. You were fighting Bucky. Maybe if you weren't such a fucking softie, Natasha would still be here. But no. He was your best friend seventy years ago, and much more important than your teammate, whose life was depending on you."

As Tony finished his sentiment, Peter whispered, "Traitor."

The rest of the team took it up as a chant, closing in on Steve, the circle growing more and more claustrophobic, squeezing him in amongst murmurs and cries, the word echoing around him, crushing and smothering any coherent thought… traitor… traitor… traitor…

Steve woke up with a start, sweating and shivering under his sheets. He took a moment to recollect himself, trying to slow his racing heart. His breaths heaved, and he put his hands over his head shakily, interlacing them and cradling the base of his neck.

His eyes found their way to the empty side of his bed, his ears listening for her breathing, momentarily forgetting she wasn't there. His fingers danced over the impressions her unconscious body had left in his mattress, tracing the curve of her body. She'd been crawling in here lately, shaken up by a bed night terror and craving human contact.

Tears spilled over his cheeks as he thought about her. Traitor, traitor, traitor…

"I'm not a traitor," he mumbled.

And he'd prove it when he finally found her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! I'm aware it's confusing! There's a point to this! I don't want to spoil it! Just-- Try to bear with me! There's a method to the madness! There's a reason it's confusing and messy! Think WandaVision but-- not like that-- yet ??? !!!


End file.
